Saturday, 18 August 2012

 

Start: Kiev 09:00

Arrival: Lviv 17:30

Total: 557 km

 

 

 

 

It's less than 600 kilometers from Kiev to the border of Poland. When we set out in the morning, we were confident to arrive early enough in Lviv to check out the main sights of the city before nightfall. Unfortunately, not all highways are created equal. Instead of speeding along a fast-motorvehicles-only road, we had to drive through one village after another. Every few kilometers, there was a settlement or a bus stop with the obligatory pedestrian crossing. We also encountered a lot of police patrols and radar checks, which was an additional incentive to drive slowly and carefully. I was reminded of the road from Wroclaw to Warsaw that I had taken a few years earlier. The inhabitants of that region had voted against a real motorway and opted instead for a compromise such as this one, with pedestrian crossings straight into the oncoming traffic, instead of overpasses. This, of course, was a danger and annoyance for all parties involved, but I guess they must have had their reasons.

 

The trip across Western Ukraine was long and rather annoying. Too many speed controls for my liking. Also, there were no restplaces worth mentioning on the entire stretch. After a while, nature called, but look as we might, there was no gas station or roadside inn in sight. “I really have to go,” I moaned. “Just stop and do your thing,” Sonia suggested, knowing full well that I couldn’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, more that my body won’t let me. I need at least a modicum of privacy. At last, we came to an exit road. I made a right, determined to ring on a private door, if need be. But the street didn’t lead to any village, only to a large, foreboding building behind a barbed-wire fence. At one point, the fence was interrupted by a large portal, which was wide open and unattended. Strange. What’s the use of a barrier, when you leave one be-it-ever-so-tiny part open?

 

I steered the car through the portal. The building behind it looked unused and condemned. Maybe an old Soviet barracks, disused after the breakup of the country? Or an old aviation field from World War II? If no one was around, maybe I could just wee in the hedges after all.

 

I stopped the car in the yard. A man in uniform approached. Not so deserted after all. He seemed more intrigued than alarmed. Probably didn’t get many visitors. Seeing as we had to explain our presence in any case, I decided that I might as well be upfront and asked if I could use their bathroom for an ever more pressing emergency. He explained that the building was a military facility.... I guessed that was a "no".... but that I could go in and use the toilet. My eyes lit up. He gave me directions and left us to our own devices. I did my thing and we got back into the car. The man waved us goodbye. What a really pleasant experience in this bleak countryside!

 

 

 

It was after five o’clock in the evening when we finally reached Lviv. Luckily, we found our hotel without a problem, a charming old building with high ceilings, ornate decorations and thick lavish curtains. Our lodgings on the upper floor were huge, they consisted of a small hall with an adjacent bathroom, a large dining room with television, couch and table for four as well as a small writing desk with a mirror. Another door led to the bedroom and there was even a balcony. And we had all this to ourselves! What a treat after this long trip. We felt transported back to the court of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the times of the Habsburg kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. The house, the room and the entire town seemed to me to give off a distinct K&K vibe.

 

All weariness forgotten, we felt ready to explore the old town centre. Lviv, the former Lemberg and erstwhile capital of the aforementioned kingdom of Galicia, is the largest city in Western Ukraine, but its historic part is small enough and our hotel was right in the centre of it. When we stepped out of the hotel, we noticed the coat-of-arms of a lion attached to its facade. Of course! Lev means "lion" in Russian, and "Lviv" is surely its Ukrainian counterpart. In less than two minutes, we had reached what looked like the main tourist area of the town. The marketplace, Rinok, was full of stalls with trinkets and souvenirs, loud music blaring out of loudspeakers and cafés. It was too noisy, too crowded and generally too much of everything. In short: it was your usual tourist trap. But we loved the girls ambling about in beautiful lush period clothes, offering flowers to the tourists. We strolled around the place, on the lookout for a restaurant, as we had not eaten all day.

 

Suddenly, we noticed a small group of people with banners and slogans standing around a statue of the poet Shevchenko. The banners said "Svoboda", which means Freedom. Freedom from what? Or to do what? That it didn't say. Most of the people seemed to be young, maybe students. Within the time it took us to get nearer, a rather large crowd had gathered in the small square. A man was lifting a megaphone and quite suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of the demonstration. It was becoming too crowded for comfort and we quickly retreated into a quieter side street. We felt no inclination whatsoever to get involved in the affairs of another country. Somehow, the demonstrators had not given off a good vibe. Once we had left the Freedom-touters behind, we breathed again more freely.

 

Walking on, we came to the statue of a man in front of a small museum. A number of people took pictures next to it, giggling and laughing. Who was the man? A celebrated composer? A renowned poet? An honored scientist? A famous statesman? As it turned out, this was the birthplace of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, writer of erotic novels, after whom the concept of masochism was named. The counterpoint to the Marquis the Sade, so to speak. The Austrian and the Frenchman, the grand European story. Of course, I had to take a picture with him as well. Without giggling.

 

We mused whether Herr Sacher-Masoch had any relation with the famous Viennese cakes as well. This was, of course, my grumbling stomach speaking, and luckily for us, there was an inviting restaurant, right on the other side of the street from the Masoch museum. We were given the choice between a smoking and a non-smoking room, and so found ourselves all alone in a small room of only three tables. Quite perfect for us.

 

Our waiter seemed a bit grumpy at first, maybe because he had to attend to two rooms now, but by the end of the evening, he was warming up to our relentless charm offensive. The food was delicious and the cocktail ‒ my first one on the entire trip ‒ was heavenly. A delight in aquamarine, containing quite a generous amount of alcohol, which had a pleasant effect on my empty stomach.

 

Back at the hotel room, we fell on the bed, tired but not yet ready to sleep. Switching on the television, we settled on a Russian crime movie that had just started. Amazingly, we were able to follow the plot, even though we didn’t understand much of what they were saying. If only it was always so easy to determine who was the good guy and who the baddie. With snippets of colourful cocktails, depraved aristocrats and vocal protest marches flashing through our minds, we drifted dreamily into the last day of our trip.